rom one place to another, 'a dirty, red-faced man, ornamented
with flies,' and often by his unexpected appearance and promptitude
carried the day, 'because he gave his enemies no time to think' or to
plot against him. Hearing at the end of August that Suleiman was about
to attack Dara, he at once rode straight to the spot, which he reached
in the condition I have described.

'If I had no escort of men,' he writes to his sister, 'I had a large
escort of flies. I suppose the queen fly was among them. The people were
paralysed at my arrival, and could not believe their eyes. At dawn I got
up, and putting on the golden armour the khedive gave me, mounted my
horse, and with an escort of my robbers of Bashi-Bazouks rode out to the
camp of the other robbers, about three miles off. There were about three
thousand of them, men and boys: they were dumbfounded at my coming among
them.'

Alone in a tent, with the chiefs, headed by Suleiman, 'a nice-looking
lad of twenty-two,' sitting in a circle round him, Gordon informed them
'in choice Arabic' that he was quite aware that they intended to revolt
against the Egyptian government, and that he intended to disarm them and
break them up.

'They listened in silence and went off to consider what I had said.
They have just now sent in a letter stating their submission, and I
thank God for it,' he continues. 'The sort of stupefied way in which
they heard me go to the point about their doings, the pantomime of
signs, the bad Arabic, was quite absurd.' Then one by one the other
slave-dealers surrendered, and though Suleiman still gave him much
trouble, and was to give more, yet on the whole things had gone much
better than he had feared, and by the middle of October he arrived at
Khartoum, and after a week's hard work took a steamer and went down the
river to Berber and Dongola. In March he very unwillingly continued his
journey to Cairo, at the command of the khedive, who desired to create
him president of the Finance Inquiry. But this was a great mistake;
Gordon's views on the matter were different from those of other men, and
he had been too long accustomed to be absolute master in any task he
undertook to be able to work harmoniously with his equals. The khedive,
too, failed to support him, and Gordon, seeing it was hopeless to expect
to gain his point, and depressed and annoyed with what had taken place,
returned to Khartoum by way of the Suez Canal and Suakim.

* *